Khoo Teck Puat - Biography

Biography

Khoo received his early education in St Joseph's Institution in Singapore in 1930. He was educated up to standard eight prior to his marriage at the age of 17, and started working in the bank Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) as an apprentice bank clerk by 1933. While attached with OCBC, Khoo served as the Chairman of Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board for a year in 1958. His rise in OCBC was rapid and he developed strong ties with Tan Chin Tuan until they had a difference of opinion which resulted him leaving OCBC in 1959 as the General Manager. He argued that OCBC was growing far too slowly and not opening enough branches in the smaller towns in Peninsular Malaya.

In 1960, Khoo restarted his career in banking by founding Malayan Banking (now commonly known as Maybank) with a few partners in Kuala Lumpur. The bank grew rapidly to more than 150 branches within three years. In 1963, the bank purchased Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore for S$4.8 million. In 1965, Khoo was ousted from Maybank by the Malaysian government under Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak on the pretext of pumping the bank's money into his own private firm in Singapore.

In 1968, Khoo bought over Maybank's Singapore properties, including Goodwood Park Hotel and Central Properties, for S$50 million. While bitter with what the Malaysian government did, Khoo retained his Malaysian citizenship. He ceased to be a director of Maybank in 1976. Though he had opened the national bank of Brunei in the 1960s, his search for a legitimate banking vehicle continued.

In 1981, Khoo bought Australia's Southern Pacific Hotel Corporation - parent of the Travelodge chain. He sold it in 1988 as part of his asset liquidation process to make restitution to the Bruneian government.

In 1986 an opportunity arose when as a white knight, Khoo made a dramatic acquisition of a 5% stake in the British bank Standard Chartered, being one of three financiers who came to the rescue of Stanchart to stave off a hostile takeover by Lloyds Bank. He subsequently grew his stake to almost 15% to become the single largest shareholder. In 1990, Khoo made a contribution of S$10 million to the Singapore government's 25th anniversary charity fund - to help children, the elderly and the disabled. He was listed as Singapore's richest businessman by the business magazine Forbes in 2003.

When Khoo died in 2004, he left his Standard Chartered stake, then approximately 11.5%, to his children. They sold it to Singapore's Temasek Holdings in March 2006.